41 posts categorized "Communication"

August 16, 2011

Rogue 24 is a new DC restaurant that is apparently so worried about no-shows that it has a two-page contract for would-be patrons. Their terms require payment for cancellations within 72 hours among other (obnoxious) things.

For some, the sense of exclusivity (and jerkiness) might actually be a draw, but last time I checked, restaurants were considered part of the "hospitality" industry and there is nothing hospitable about their approach.

I know a lot of CPA firms who are sick to death of clients not being ready for them when they show up for audit fieldwork. (This post uses audit as an example, but the concepts apply to consulting, website development, and a zillion other types of projects.)

I can't blame a firm for being frustrated when the audit team appears at a company and the advance PBC (prepared-by-client) list has not been completed. It sucks. It's expensive and it's disruptive.

The auditors either leave with unanticipated open time in the middle of what is typically a jam-packed audit season, or they simply begin to "help" the client get ready. But in doing so without a signed change order, the firm will likely end up writing off the work. Or worse, the firm will later "bill and duck" for this work at high risk of angering the client.

And next year, when the client is not ready again, the firm is ... wait for it ... surprised. And annoyed.

Parents who are reading this may be able to recognize what the firm has just done.

The firm has successfully trained the client that the PBC list and the work schedule just aren't that important and don't need to be respected or adhered to.

Feeling taken advantage of, and still not realizing it's partly their own fault, some firms contemplate "policies" that penalize a client for not abiding by the schedule. Perhaps Rogue 24's policy is a good model to follow, eh? Nuh-uh.

There are much better ways to set expectations and prevent major disruptions to scheduling for audits or similar work that needs to be organized well in advance with appropriately skilled people during very specific time periods.

Sit on the same side of the table as your customer.

I'm not the least bit against a monetary penalty for lack of readiness. In fact, I believe timing of work should play a huge role in determining your prices. Timing is usually critical to the client and duration (a maximum) is nearly always going to be essential to your profitability.

But it's not hospitable to shove an ugly contract in your current or prospective customer's face demanding compliance with your unilaterally decided terms. Doing so creates an adversarial relationship with the customer. (Sorta like billing and ducking does.)

Instead, put some energy into learning details about your customer's exact needs, educating them where it is helpful to both of you, and doing everything possible to help them be ready for you on the day you are going to show up to begin that work.

The best tone to take is "help us help you."

1. Give exact dates.

Be very, very clear about timing in your project quotes (or proposals or statements of work or customer-service agreements — whatever you choose to call them). Many firms take a lazy approach and simply say "30 days before the reporting date" or "30 days after fiscal year end."

Egads, if you don't care enough about the dates to list them, why would you think your client will care enough to honor them?

Don't ever make the customer calculate any due dates!

Do the legwork and tell them the actual dates. Better yet, include a visual. Show them key dates, don't just bury them in text.

Say what is needed, when, by whom, and delivered to whom.

2. Teach them how.

Do you want to win some points for being extra helpful? And do have you have an ulterior motive to make sure it's done right? Of course you do! And that's all right.

Informally talk with them. Show them samples. Provide templates.

Maybe you can offer some formal classes on preparing PBC list items. Education is a terrific complimentary service that you could offer as part of the engagement or charge extra for it. Perhaps new clients get to attend the first one free. Or every client gets one admission included and additional people are extra.

3. Provide reminders. Early and often.

Customers appreciate your reminder postcards, phone calls, and emails. They show you care and they emphasize that you're serious about timing and readiness.

This can be done by your admin team on a systematic schedule: a week before fieldwork, two weeks before, 30 days before, 60 days before, etc.

"How's your PBC list coming along?" "Do you have any questions for us?" "Don't forget, we'll be there Monday the 23rd." "Call us ASAP if you have any concerns about being ready two weeks from tomorrow. Now's the time to let us know!"

4. Show you're serious.

Of course there can and should be a stated consequence to lack of readiness if that should occur after all the education and reminders.

In your project quotes, describe how you'll do everything in your power to help them be ready. Show you are committed to helping them help you help them (did you follow that?). Tell them you share their goal for a successful project and that in order to meet their desired delivery timing, these [list] things need to happen on these [list] dates.

Tell them that in the unfortunate event that you don't get adequate notice about a date change (two weeks might be reasonable for adjusting an audit schedule) that there will be a $1,000 (or $5,000 or $10,000) rescheduling charge and that their audit would then need to be bumped back to the end of the month (or quarter or year).

And be very clear, in advance, about extra charges (state how much they'll pay for commonly delayed items) for assisting onsite with incomplete PBC work if you even have the time available to perform the work and still meet the agreed-upon delivery timing. This makes obtaining approved change requests a lot easier because the pricing was already spelled out.

When you provide your reminders, remind them that you don't want them to incur these charges or delay their audit and that's why you're being such a stickler about timing.

You can also consider offering rewards for readiness such as "clients who are ready for us will get priority scheduling next year" with first pick of dates which, of course, implies the opposite as a consequence for lack of readiness.

Training is hard and retraining is harder.

What you are trying to do with all of this is to gain advance knowledge about lack of readiness so you can properly manage and adjust your clients' expectations about price and delivery. And, of course, manage your own scheduling (second to managing client expectations).

Don't budge on your extra charges or rescheduling. Just like parenting, it takes confidence and guts to stick to our guns during the retraining process, but we have to do it to correct the problems we have created and to be taken seriously. The very first time you are inconsistent, you defeat your purpose and have to start all over again.

If you apply these principles with "love" and care (e.g., it's for your own good ... "help us help you") by sitting on the same side of the table rather than coming across as though they work for you, clients can respect and appreciate you in the process of following your approach to serving them.

November 02, 2010

I'm witnessing an increase in the number of people creating "extra" accounts on Facebook to help them manage (separate) business and private personas.

This might seem like a good way to manage privacy such as protecting kiddos or allowing you to let your hair down among close friends and family while maintaining your professional decorum among business associates or even strangers who want to know you, even if you don't know them.

Others do it not so much for privacy concerns, but to avoid sending business-y messages and links to family and "old" friends who aren't into your business. That's thoughtful for sure, but there are other ways to manage this.

Having multiple Facebook accounts is a bad idea for several reasons, one of which is that it violates Facebook's Terms of Use (see 4.2)

Maintaining multiple accounts, regardless of the purpose, is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If you already have a personal account, then we cannot allow you to create business accounts for any reason.

Facebook instead wants you to create a "Page" for your business presence rather than a separate personal profile. So, even if you have a company page (like mine) they would prefer that I set up a "Michelle Golden" business person page.

This is what Facebook "likes"!

They describe in the FAQ that you can manage all your Pages (and ads) that you create from your personal account. And if you don't want people clicking into your personal life, they won't. Facebook explains:

Please keep in mind that the fans of any of the Pages you administer will not have visibility or access to your personal account or profile. Any actions that you take as a Page administrator on your Page will show the Page’s name as the [poster] and not your personal name. To create a Page, simply click on the "Create a Page" link under the Sign Up section of www.facebook.com.

This is actually really cool because people can "like" and share your business page and posts so your content can go a lot further than just among your circle of approved "friends." Also, with a "Page" you can see (aggregated) statistics that tell you if you are engaging well with others, or are having your post stream hidden by others! (gasp)

But let's talk about the other reasons you might not want to divide your "friends" between two accounts in the first place.

1) MISSING OUT.

When you divide your feed, and "depersonalize" your interaction to the business peeps, you miss out on the whole purpose of using social media for business development! (more below)

2) MANAGING CONTENT RELEVANCE.

By creating "friend lists," you can designate content you DO want to go to certain people or DON'T want to go to certain people. In other words, if you don't want to burden "family" or "jr high friends" with your business posts, create a group for them and when you write the business post, simply set the post to exclude viewing by that group.

3) MANAGING PRIVACY.

Take advantage of Facebook's incredibly rich privacy settings. Avoid sharing your vacation photos (or any other content or links) with your business peeps by placing photos in a special album just for lists of "family" and "close friends."

REMEMBER, ENGAGING IS WHAT MAKES FACEBOOK VALUABLE AS A BUSINESS TOOL

Facebook is not for broadcasting! (No social media are for broadcasting.) It's for interacting.

Bottom line is that the much of the point and purpose of using social media in business is for people to become closer. As in friends. As in learning what they have in common and stuff.

I have some Facebook friends who only "do Facebook" for business and it shows. There is no personal engagement. No relationship building. No point (at least for me). It's dry. It's boring. It's a broadcast. No thanks.

REAL RESULTS

Yet there are other Facebook business people that I hardly knew or totally didn't know before friending on Facebook. Yet we got closer through Facebook. And these people actually constitute the largest percent of people that have hired me or referred business to me as a result of getting to know one another via ANY FORM of social media. More than LinkedIn and more than Twitter.

From personal experience (I haven't conducted a formal survey, but maybe I should) I attribute this to the fact that I am fairly personal (aka "myself") on Facebook. And they seem to be, as well. I share and they share. And we get to know each other. We mutually participate and banter. I congratulate them on their marathons, "like" their family photos and song posts, commiserate when they have a rough go, wish them well when they are ill. And I mean it. And they do the same. And it results in building our relationships.

HOW TO GET YOURSELF HIDDEN

People who only feed their Tweets, blog posts, and Foursquare without otherwise engaging others are completely missing out on the benefits of the relationship development aspect of Facebook. Typical user behavior is to "hide" the posts of these people.

There are also some people who, when others comment or congratulate, ignore the messages. Typical user behavior is to stop commenting on these people's posts. No one likes to be ignored. Sometimes hiding the posts of these people or even unfriending them is a next step.

Again, Facebook is not for broadcasting. It's not one way. Even brands that merely broadcast, and fail to engage, get "hidden" from user feeds.

WHAT NEXT?

So, instead of creating a separate business presence, first try the friend lists feature to control privacy and/or content distribution.

If that doesn't suit your needs, create a "Page" for yourself as a professional (even if your company has its own page...you can cross link the pages). But if you go the Page route, be sure that you still engage, and still show some of your personality there. If you want relationships to develop, that is!

It's 68 pages of brilliance and life-changing perspective from a wise man who claims "there are no new ideas in this book." Well, he does a beautiful job, then, of taking nuggets we need to know and putting them into a form we can apply to our business and personal lives.

I met Charles when I took his full day session in April at the International Association of Facilitator's conference. It was a day of learning that changed my thinking significantly. But more importantly, it struck me how absolutely helpful this book will be for professional firms.

It's as applicable to customer relationships as it is to firm management.

March 09, 2010

Some interesting backstage comments followed the Oscars on ABC News/Entertainment made by Kathryn Bigelow (Best Director for Hurt Locker) on the quality of the 2010 Oscar nominees. She said,

"This has been a really extraordinary year for content, and content-driven material that is diverse and complex."

I was really moved when I read this.

It's a reflection of what's garnering the most attention, and exactly mirrors what's happening on-line. What draws is content.

Sure Avatar is beautiful. Very beautiful, indeed. Far surpassing any movie ever made. But let's be real. The story line is a re-do. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen the flick by naming the 80s movie the story parallels, but you'll know when you watch it.

Funny when you think about it because, despite pretty redesigns, most current law and accounting firm website content is nearly IDENTICAL to the stuff the firms said about themselves in their first websites, circa 1995.

And, THAT text came from where? Yes. Straight from the blah-blah, we-we-we, all-about us, fluffy brochures the firms used since.... when? The 80s.

Just sayin'...

That approach is done. And those sites are so dead they don't even stink anymore!

Today's web is ALL about content-driven material that is diverse and complex.

I do see some firms venturing into web content with very watered down, Info-101-type content that wouldn't teach my 16 year-old anything, much less be a worthwhile resource for the C-Suite exec it is supposedly targeted to.

No no no. Content should never be dumbed down. Please. Punch it UP. Aim high.

If your audience doesn't get it because it's over their heads, they won't think LESS of you, they'll think MORE of you. This is far safer than dumbing down the content so much that it comes across as insulting or condescending. Be very careful of that.

Get out there. Show your intellect. Show your depth. MOVE people. Give them something to applaud. Stand out!

So, back to the Oscars for the lesson... Pretty is pretty. Popular is popular. But content wins.

September 03, 2009

Some interesting albeit frustrating discussions about disclaimers lately. These relate to websites.

Before I get into this, I want to state that I am not a lawyer, I do not pretend to be a lawyer, nor do I know more than lawyers on the topic of legal liabilities. (I hope that adequately protects me...you'll see the irony later.).

AND, if any IP or other attorneys, especially those WELL ACQUAINTED with web and social media would please add their .02, here, I would be thrilled!

Now to my topic. It involves two scenarios...OUTBOUND LINK DISCLAIMERSAn association whose board (comprising leaders of member companies) perhaps at the urging of their legal counsel, created a policy requiring its members (independent companies) to substantially modify their individual websites to protect the association.

The requirement: each member must program their website such that EVERY external link first opens a pop-up stating independence from, and no liability to, the company OR the association for the content or opinions, etc. on the third-party website.

I checked with several web-savvy attorneys who have, off the record, agreed this is overkill in the extreme.

They agree that a single statement on the company's legal page disclaiming liability for any external links, for either the company and/or the association(s) to which it belongs, will suffice as protection for both. If a company/association is super worried, they might want to spell out that disclaimer in small print at the bottom of the page(s) that contain outbound links.

Pop-ups are functional misery when it comes to website usability, not to mention SEO (the pop-up, especially with a "agree/disagree" prompt to close it) stops search engines from crawling to index the site thus the company loses link juice.

Site departure warnings are such an antiquated approach in today's virtual business-world. Do we really need neon signs telling us that EVERY outbound link is taking us to another site?

Is there really, truly a need to apply this aggressive, in-your-face method of protection? If so, why don't the Top 100 law firms do it for all their outbound links? If anybody would be cognizant of major liability, Big Law would, right?

And, as one very web-savvy IP attorney asked rhetorically, "Do they have a disclaimer on every page of their newsletters? If not, why have a disclaimer on every page of the web site?

Frankly, I am shocked any members comply, but they are required to. Please chime in....let's release them from this restrictive bond!

ATTORNEY/CLIENT PRIVILEGEAnother example recently brought to my attention is concern about prospects emailing a law firm with sensitive information--an act through which they might infer they now have an attorney/client relationship and the confidentiality, etc. that goes along with it.

When you email any of Hepler Broom's attorneys, get this pop-up which requires your "agreement" in order to send an email.

Overkill? Great idea? I'm sure the votes might be split.

Here's what I think:

Why on earth would a firm want to create an accept-these-terms-legal-disclaimer barrier between
themselves and anyone who wants to reach out to them?

Do you need to do this if your "contacting us by email or through this website does not constitute an attorney/client relationship" policy is
clearly stated in your legal disclaimer? Or at the bottom of each page?

(I
notice that Hepler Broom doesn't seem to have a legal disclaimer anywhere else, just a
very brief privacy policy. But if they did, wouldn't that suffice?)

Do most firms (excluding, say, PI and bankruptcy who might serve a non-business or generally less-sophisticated clientele) get such a high frequency of people
who email with the expectation they then have atty/client privilege?

I'm thinking this pop-up thing makes the firm look paranoid to
talk to anyone. Or it looks super-aggressive. Or both. It also presumes no one but prospects would email. What about referral sources? Or media?

If they are THAT worried about misunderstandings and inadvertent conflict situations, why stop with just people who email through the firm's website??

What about the business card? Or the handout from the presentation the attorney did last month?

If a firm REALLY wants to make sure to
avoid any such misunderstandings through emailed confidences, shouldn't they just set up their email server to
auto-respond to ALL incoming emails (from all sources) requiring people to agree
to these terms or their email won't be delivered.

WHERE ARE THE LAWYERS WHO ARE IN THE KNOW? The above examples fall into the same categories as contact page "forms" (where one cannot get to a human) and those gawd-awful automated voice systems that we find ourselves trapped in.

They are all representative of the same things: we are too corporate to do business with you; we are more worried about US (being liable, being bothered, whatever) than we are about building a relationship with YOU.

I find myself quite frustrated with the seemingly low number of legal advisors who really "get" communications in the 2000s. Lawyers who don't "get it" are scaring the tar out of their clients.

Legal experts, I beg of you, if you can help your colleagues handle their own and their clients' legal needs in less intrusive ways, with fewer negative service/presentation side-effects, please speak up and help get your legal colleagues up-to-date.

Can anyone point to or cite examples (or case law) for or against these types of practices?

July 23, 2009

FAQs--the sort found on software or product sites--might not be the most effective approach for marketing a service firm, but what can we learn from them?

If most firms set about to add a general FAQ page today, without thinking it through, it would end up being more like a QWWYWA (Questions We Wish You Would Ask) page. This would be where the firm would regurgitate its brochure and proposal "all about us" language yet again.

But it's proven. That doesn't work.

LESSON ONE: PURPOSE

You don't sell a product that has finite function, limitations, or usage. The FAQ was first created for that. You sell knowledge. So what should your FAQ contain? Be certain of your purpose before you build it. See below.

LESSON TWO: TRANSPARENCY

If your FAQ is going to cover "why buy from us" or "how to buy from us" then be transparent about it. Some ideas about that...

About 1/2 way down the letter begins a "Q&A" section, and 3/4 of the way down is this:

Q: I'm a business/financial reporter. Can you talk like a banker and use fancy-sounding language that we can print in a business publication? (where they used their canned marketing jargon)

And below that is Q: Can you talk like a lawyer now? (where they obviously put that requisite legal stuff)

If an accounting or law firm were to throw in some self-serving info in a FAQ, I would hope they would do it with this sort of transparency (and humor).

LESSON THREE: CONTENT

Who is an FAQ gonna help sell?

Traditional FAQs are probably not going to close a $10K+ accounting/audit service or big piece of litigation to the C-suite.

Bookkeeping or basic tax work, sure, but last time I checked, firms over $3-4 million in revenues aren't interested in doing more of either of those services.

Bankruptcy, estate administration, or estate planning for an individual, perhaps.

For complex issues, some accountants and many lawyers have GREAT FAQ pages, and they are usually called blogs. If you really want an FAQ page, use a blog approach even for a static website.

Make an FAQ topic specific. Not an FAQ "about the firm" but about "estate planning" or "trusts" or "probate." Break a complex issue down into pieces and tackle each piece separately.

A blog is a better tool to accommodate this content style, though.

These professions are so complex that a good FAQ page is a discussion of meaningful issues--a fluid discussion because issues are fluid.

Here is a blog by a small but powerhouse firm who does public company audits aptly titled "Gray Matters." Does it get more complex than SEC compliance? This is meaningful, useful advice, and theoretical concepts (and not always towing the party line!) that keep CEOs, CFOs, and board members reading, and it substantiates the firm's level of knowledge. Big 4 folks subscribe to the blog, too. It's that good.

LESSON FOUR: EFFECTIVENESS

When your competitors read you, and media reads you, you know you are on the right track. When clients or prospects comment on how helpful the site was, or they actually contact you because of it, you are doing it right (assuming these are your goals).

If you are a professional service / knowledge firm, then my recommendation is to skip the all-about-us FAQ and give people evidence of your knowledge. Blog being your tool, or not.

April 15, 2009

Whatever it is you write—your blog, a tweet, an article, a book, a newsletter, web content, or even a good, old-fashioned letter, memo, or email—you want the reader to easily GET what you are saying and act on it.

To accomplish this, you need clarity. And, these days, you need brevity.

Hunt down redundancies. When I write fast and without effort, I find my copy is full of useless words that I use over and over and ideas that I communicate two or three or four times (just like this sentence, ha!).

Here is how I can edit this sentence: When writing fast and without effort, my copy becomes bloated with useless words and repeated ideas.

I love how she illustrated her point. I see redundancies in my work when I rush and almost always in a first draft or braindump. Calling myself out on it more often, I really notice it now in other people's writing.

Dianna's post is for EVERYONE. It is a quick read and worth printing and tacking to the wall!

November 23, 2008

I think the reason accountants and lawyers excessively capitalize has to do with legal documents (contracts and engagement letters) you know, “This contract is between Smith, Evans and Jones (hereafter referred to as “the Firm”) and ABC Company, Inc. (hereafter known as “Company”)…”

So firms got used to capitalizing both words, "Firm" and “Company” (<-- or whatever word you use to describe a client's business like "Bank" or "Agency" or "District" or ... you get the drift) throughout documents, that you started applying that to every type of document including brochures, websites or proposals.

Please stop.

It is grammatically incorrect… as well as giving the "Firm" the appearance of massive self-importance.

Since I'm on the subject, you shouldn't capitalize Partner either. Titles are capitalized when used formally, preceding someone's name such as "President Bush went for a walk." but not "George Bush, president of the United States, went for a walk."

So on your bio, you should be "Fred Smith, partner in the tax and estate planning practice area, joined the firm after working with an international [accounting/law] firm where he was a senior manager [or associate]." Note partner/manager/associate isn't capitalized, nor is the practice area, nor is firm.

November 22, 2008

I'm pretty new to Twitter (@goldenm) and I don't spend a ton of time on it. But I felt compelled to check it out and see what the buzz is about.

Would there be value for a business person? For personal reasons? I was a skeptic, but enough people I know and respect were spending energy there, so I thought, perhaps, I was wrong.

Twitter is a microblogging site that allows people to post their thoughts while trying to do so using 140 characters or fewer. <--about the length of that sentence.

INTRO TO TWITTER

I actually enjoy popping in once or twice a day for a few minutes to see what people are talking about. I started "following" some friends and business assocaites I could find, and then added a couple strangers whose posts/replies to my friends were intriguing. Most of those "strangers" quickly followed me back.

Pretty soon, some new "strangers" started following me. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to follow them back or not. I didn't know if it mattered. Who are they? Why would I want to see their tweets?

Some of them seemed to post constantly and my screen would be completely full with just them. Of course, that is more likely when you only follow a few people. But there were a couple that I decided were not posting things that were terribly interesting to me or were blatently self-promoting. Not once, but repeatedly. Bye-bye.

Click on someone's name and a quick skim will tell you what they post about and if they are using Twitter as a sales mechansim.

VALUE OF TWITTER

Much to my surprise, in a couple weeks, I've found several benefits from my time on Twitter:

very short intros to nuggets of information

great links

interesting news items

wise ponderings

seeing what people I care about are up to

tips on how they cope with juggling

technologies they are exploring

observations they have

reading "new people" and broadening my field of learning

invaluable on emerging news

To the last point, when I couldn't find good, up to date (actual on-the-street) news about the fires in So Cal last week, of all places, the Orange County Register piped in a feed of all Tweets talking about the fires. I could read continuous feeds, and see pics, from people talking about the fires in my home town, very near my mom. This relieved my worries in a way nothing else did. In fact, some of the Twitterers were so interesting, I still follow them.

UNCLEAR ASPECTS

My only beef with the experience, and I will stay on it, were the challenges I had in figuring out some basics...how can I search for stuff, for instance.

Search: Even if you go to Twitter's Help and ask "How can I search twitter?" there is no clear answer. I must really be dork because I didn't notice the very subtle search link stashed at the bottom of the page. Search at search.twitter.com and some guidelines for searching are enormously helpful: http://search.twitter.com/operators

DM, RT, @, #, tinyurl, ... what do these things mean?

DM is a direct message to a specific person (that remains private)

RT is re-tweet (or posting to your followers something you read from other tweeple (seriously, that's what twitter users are called)

@ is a reply to a specific person (not private)

# preceeds a community chosen phrase that makes it easy to search for related posts. For instance #ocfire was the chosen phrase to capture the posts related to the fires near my mom's house

tinyurl and similar services compress long URLs which is important when you have only 140 characters to state your point

I've read it is "bad" to have a big variance between your number of followers and those you follow. But I didn't necessarily understand why. Jack's article helped put this into perspective of the value of social media, and the comments on his post help as well.

In fact, Jack has great articles on his TweeterBlog and info on how to get started. Wish I'd found his blog on day one!

For me, I'm still Tweeting about. Enjoying meeting new people and soaking up at least one or two great new ideas a day. Now that I've read these articles (above), I'll get more involved in replying, too. I didn't know it wasn't rude on Twitter to "butt in" to a conversation. Thanks for clearing that up, Jennifer!

July 23, 2008

With permission, I post an e-newsletter article by a St Louisan in the PR profession, Les Landes. Les also recently started a blog called "Inside Out" which addresses "aligning marketing communications with employee engagement."

A few years ago, The Journal of Employee Communication Management published an article entitled "Employees Are Not an Audience." It was written by Glynn Young, who currently heads the Issues, Employee and Electronic Communications function for Monsanto Company. His basic premise is simple yet significant - the job of organizational communicators should NOT be mainly to create and deliver messages to the employee audience, but rather to facilitate conversations within the employee community.

That distinction is more than an exercise in semantics. It goes to the heart of why organizations struggle - and often fail - to generate meaningful employee engagement. It also explains why organizations get caught in the wrongheaded notion that they need better "two-way" communication.

Seriously - is there any other kind? Bottom line, if it isn't two-way, it isn't communication. It's message distribution.

Community of ProfessionalsEven if we're not conscious of it, we know in our guts that employees shouldn't be treated as an audience when it comes to communication. Just look at another metaphor often used for them - team. Can you imagine how Michael Jordan or Tom Brady or Albert Pujols or other sports team members would react if their organizations communicated with them like an "audience?" Pretty weird, huh?

But they're different, right? After all, those people are "professionals." Consider for a moment, though, how an organization might run its business and communicate with its employees differently if they viewed employees as a "community of professionals" - professional accountants, professional order entry clerks, professional maintenance workers, professional production line workers -- and so on? You get the picture.

Sure, the challenges are different when you're communicating with 12 to 50 people instead of 12,000 to 50,000. But the need for people to feel that their organizations are communicating with them as professional members of a team is much the same.

Shifting from Messages to ConversationsAdmittedly, logistics are more complex with larger groups, and the options for communicating differ from one organization to the next depending on numerous factors. What's more, truly interactive communication simply isn't possible in all circumstances. If the building is on fire, for example, that's no time to engage an employee discussion group in considering various options on how to respond.

Still, organizations of any size and circumstance can and should shift from "sending messages" to "facilitating conversations" wherever possible by operating on two basic principles:

1. Stop using the phrase "communicate to," and replace it with "communicate with." If the best you can do is send a message, say so - but don't call it communication.

2. Where it's feasible and appropriate, frame "messages" as "conversation points," and create systematic ways for employees to converse and provide feedbackon those topics.

While those principles are important for everyone in management to understand, it's vital for people in charge of internal communications to follow them if they want to get employees truly engaged and strengthen working relationships within the "employee community."

Les has an impressive list of communications of interest to people who understand that appreciation and respect of human capital is especially critical for firms who rely on Knowledge Workers. I hope you'll enjoy his messages as much as I do.

June 20, 2007

Even the best speakers agree there is always room for their own improvement. The rest of us know we can certainly do better.

It's wise to work on your presentation skills even if you don't formally address large groups. Many of us can benefit from becoming more effective and polished in the boardroom, too.

An excellent collection of speaking tips, Speaking as a Performing Art, is offered on Guy Kawasaki's blog. They were compiled by his friend who is a professional singer, music director and...speech coach.

He recommends how to stand to project your voice, how to keep your mouth moist, how to use your hands and how to use silence. Great stuff.

Enjoy the comments, too; one of which is:

One other recommendation I heard which helped me and can give you a boost of confidence before a presentation: remember that the audience is on your side and they want you to succeed. They want to experience a great presentation! Thinking of an audience that way, instead of thinking of them as a group of critics waiting to pounce on your first mistake, frees you up to embrace some of these tips above.

May 24, 2007

We've mentioned it before as a by-product of a good blog, but it's becoming more and more prevalent.

News media, book publishers, and trade organization publishers are reading professional service firm blogs and like what they see. Accountants and lawyers are getting visibility they never anticipated.

Two accounting bloggers I know have been contacted by Wiley about working on books!

"Just wanted to let you know that all my blogging and marketing has paid off! I just got a contract with Wiley to write a book on fraud!

Who'da thunk that a little person like me would get a contract with a great big publisher for Wiley, for a book that I've not even written yet!!! The book is "Essentials of Corporate Fraud Management." It's geared for C-Level executives, attorneys, and other professionals who need quick knowledge on a particular topic.

I have been doing so much cool stuff. writing articles all over the place, getting involved in a high-profile investigation....business has never been better. (And has never been more fun too!)"

Another is Chris Laughton, a UK chartered accountant whose Insolvency blog is only a couple months old! With a born-on date of Nov, 2006, Chris' blog has already caught the attention of the reputable publisher.

Even for professionals who don't thrill at the idea of authoring a book, good blogs can garner solos, boutiques, or even big firms the attention and visibility needed to be a recognized expert on a subject of choice.

As Tracey Segarra of Citrin Cooperman reported in her comment to my recent post about her firm's SOX blog (that was recently halted), author Mike Rhodes received some excellent media attention.

"...his blog led him to being quoted as a corporate governance expert in many national media, including Reuters and Forbes.com.

Unfortunately, time constraints made it difficult for him to give the blog the time and energy he felt it needed to serve its mission as a clearinghouse of information related to corporate governance.

He is still regularly quoted in the media, and truly enjoyed the blogging experience."

This is real and exciting. Just a couple years ago, getting this kind of exposure and opportunity would not have been possible without spending many tens of thousands of dollars with a PR agency--or doing a LOT of legwork oneself.

"Over the years I've spent a lot of money for the services of PR professionals.

They were good folks with a tough job. First, while not working inside in my law firms and companies, they had to learn as much as possible about me and what made my firms tick. Second, while being pounded on to make an unknown famous overnight, they had to beg and borrow to get me an interview or the company a mention in the press. Third, they had to do it on a limited budget.

But we needed those PR professionals because they had the needed contacts in the press. And they, not us, knew how to communicate with the media.

With blogs and social networks, you, as a lawyer, have every opportunity to make contacts in the press. Plus with user generated content and email taking the formality out of communications, you're certainly capable of communicating with the press.

You also have a the growing advantage of the press coming to you - to your online community that is. Per Brian Chin, our Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Senior Online Producer, 3.5 percent of the journalists working in the newsrooms of American newspapers now work online full time. "That's 2,000 out of the 57,000 in the American Society of Newspaper Editors' 2007 newsroom census."

Practioners are better able to develop media relationships directly rather than through an agency. Through blogs, they can earn the respect and attention of high profile journalists simply by talking (blogging) to their target audience.

Further, through blogs, professionals can even bypass the cutting room floor, and get their message out to their target audience on their own terms. It's exciting stuff!

May 23, 2007

On May 10, book and blog author David Meerman Scott announced his new book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, and thanked a list of people he credits with helping him in his quest to complete this book. He builds on Seth Godin's 19 Rules for Authors with his own offer of a 20th rule:

Thank everyone who helped you. Writing a book takes a lot of time and a great deal of work. Many people help you along the way. And you must thank them. The list that I created and added to my acknowledgments to thank the bloggers I read and others who helped me is long (163 names). But the people on this list were critical to my process.

I'm really honored to be among those David mentions in his thank you post about the full book because David's advice in his ebook "The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly" has helped me so much and, in turn, has helped my clients and many people who have heard my presentations on building an effective electronic presence and capitalizing on using new media to accomplish traditional marketing objectives like public relations, David's specialty.

David, thank you for sharing your ideas so freely. I think you are both brilliant and generous.

I can't wait to read his new book on how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers.

I'd also like to share the list of people David thanks because I've checked out quite a few and all those I've seen so far are fabulous bloggers:

March 15, 2007

I was talking yesterday with a cool 40-something chick who owns a large construction company. We were discussing marketing collateral....you know, the standard stuff that most businesses need: service or product write-ups and key person biographies.

We were talking about the stiff, formal approach that a lot of people use in these types of materials. That and the requisite buzzwords. We agreed that we both don't like either formal or buzzy.

It's funny because when we are hired to write this sort of material, we interview practitioners and draft what is usually buzzword and BS-free content. Sometimes, when people meet with us, though, or provide background info in writing, they attempt to craft what they perceive we are looking for. Invariably, they'll add a bunch of extra words between really important facts. These words, 90% of the time, are the fluffy buzzwords they think we're likely to want in there.

But when you talk to people of all generations--from the 20 year-olds who have no patience for the inauthentic, to the boomers who grew up on sit-coms with canned laughter and have been "pitched to" their whole lives as advertisers experimented with every medium of ad delivery--everyone is sick of being pitched. The BS filters are on and people turn off and tune out as soon as pitch is even slightly sensed.

Ahhh, I love to differentiate by keeping copy simple and and authentic. Fluff and buzzword free. If you're the same, you might get a kick out of this...

I had bookmarked the above mentioned post to share with you back in Oct but even funnier, just today as I'm posting it, when I visited David's site to obtain the link, I see he posted about the topic again this week with: Attention PR People: Please Speak Like Human Beings.

It's a sad and telling thing---the fact that our accountant, wealth advisor, and lawyer clients try to "help" us, their marketing professionals, by delivering their experience and backgrounds wrapped in a thick layer of gobbledygook.

I'm with David Meerman Scott. I think we need to "undo" the perception fluffy is either necessary or desirable.

February 02, 2007

I think his 7 boo-boos nicely recap what professional service firms sites are particularly guilty of. (I, too, struggle with a couple of these.)

He writes:

What comes out of most companies is bad. In my experience there are seven types of bad writing:

Thinks too much of itself. The UK satirical magazine, Private Eye runs a regular column lampooning the abuse of the word ‘solution.’ For example, Dow Corning’s “Innovative solutions for wound management,” which means “bandages.” This kind of word inflation devalues meaning and arouses the scepticism of readers.

Is too clever by half. For some reason, people are afraid to write how they speak. They want to sound big, grown-up and clever. So they use big words and long sentences. For example, I was presented with this beauty at a school board meeting once: “the Governing Body are agreeing this budget as the financial mechanism to support the education priorities of the school as identified in the School Development Plan and will adhere to the best value principles in spending its school funding allocation.” It meant, “We approve the budget.”

Gets hyped up. Press releases often include frankenquotes. These are made-up quotations that bear no resemblance to normal speech. For example: “Nortel has established a legacy in innovation and will continue to push the envelope…” Try saying that in a pub to your friends. See if they still listen to you afterwards. Or trust you.

Tells lies. In the UK, journalists score low in public trust. Somewhere near politicians and spin doctors. However, good journalists are obsessive about research, accuracy, good reporting, details and, yes, truth. What works for newspaper stories also works for business communication.

Ignores the reader. As a writer, the greatest skill is to think about what the reader needs to hear, not what you need to say. It takes an imaginative leap. For example, Google says “Please read this carefully, it’s not the usual yada, yada.” Microsoft says “This software is licensed under the agreement below.” Which one is more likely to be read?

Needs to go on a diet. Most writing can be improved by liposuction. Consider the Gettysburg Address. Antoine de Saint-Exupery said it best: “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” This is especially true when writing for the web, when you need to cut the word count by about 50 percent.

Has no direction. My favourite tutor at Oxford told me that I had to take my essays and drive them like Ayrton Senna (a famous racing driver). Good writing has a strong purpose. Bad writing has either no direction or has too many.

In fact, Matthew has an entire CATEGORY on bad writing!!

Hat tip to Dan Hull at What About Clients? for directing readers to Matthew's excellent blog (in a September post that I saved and finally went back to!!)

January 29, 2007

Sorry for any confusion...that's "killer" the good way...the way we used to use the word growing up in Southern California. The way that, if I say it now, my kids look at me like I'm a total dork (same goes for "gnarly" "rad" or "stylin'"). I think they use "phat" now, and "sick" to mean, essentially, the same thing. Yeah, like those terms are any better... :-)

Back to the point of the post, Seth Godin is recycling a previous article about being effective with electronic presentations. With "Really Bad Powerpoint" he is trying to save the world from bad use of a potentially cool tool. His post is a great read. In it, his main points are:

Communication is the transfer of emotion....If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.

If you believe in your idea, sell it....Your audience will thank you for it, because deep down, we all want to be sold.

Four tips for success:

Make cue cards (don't use the slides for this)

Create slides that demonstrate, with emotional proof (pictures), that what you’re saying is true not just accurate.

Create a leave-behind document as the proof that helps the intellectuals in your audience accept the idea that you’ve sold them on emotionally.

Create a feedback cycle to determine, "Did you sell people on your idea?"

And he finishes off with 5 rules to remember. The first is (gulp) "no more than 6 words on a slide"!

Egads, I'd better go change the two presentations I'm giving in the next 7 days!! I'll let you know how well it goes.

January 26, 2007

Knowledge of multi-cultural business and social etiquette is increasing in necessity. Living in such an electronically connected time, when even telephone access to the farthest reaches of the world are reasonable (or free with Skype! gotta love Skype...). Even I hardly go a day without speaking to or corresponding with someone from another hemisphere (and that doesn't include blogging).

January 07, 2007

...“trusted advisor” is something you want others to say about you, not say it yourself. You can talk about it amongst yourselves, hope for it—but not proclaim it.

Saying you are, or want to be, someone’s trusted advisor, is like saying you are, or want to be, really humble.

His post is SO right on. "We are qualified to be your trusted advisor" (or similar) is one of the most annoying promises that I see on professional firm websites and in collateral materials. Besides being quite presumptuous (who says you know what I want in an advisor, and what I deem worthy of trust?) it is so commonly stated that it's now cliche.

Charlie, by the way, co-authored with David Maister, THE book on the subject, The Trusted Advisor, agrees it is an inappropriate claim in one's marketing materials. Thank you Charlie!

In his post, he says he googled "to be your trusted advisor" and it generated over 31,000 results. He opines:

Trust is personal—an outcome, not a come-on. On a first date, asking for either sex or for a very long-term relationship is likely to get you neither. “Trust me” is the business version—socially inappropriate, especially on the “first date” equivalent of the internet.

It's very similar to what I wrote in "Please Don't Put This on Your Website" when I recommended against staking a claim to be a future client's "partner" in their business. I wrote not to say:

"We partner with you…"

...This is a status you earn with a long-term client or it may be a role you are invited to act within for a new client. Either way, It's not something you promise to the general public.

The same with the trusted advisor thing. (My original post lists more things to avoid...)

I couldn't agree more with Charlie's post. Be sure to read his blog post comments, too.

January 03, 2007

I've been learning in my consulting practice that when I come across as "having the answer" I never get as far as I do when I offer a suggestion (that I think will work), and ask my clients why it won't work. There are a variety of questions I could ask along these lines, but they all center around surfacing obstacles and unintended consequences of the idea. And, conveniently, when I bring other people into the conversation, I usually get a better solution in the end.

He shares this astute observation after reading and citing a post from Bruce MacEwen's blog. I urge you to read Jack's full post that links to Bruce's.

On a separate note...IT'S A VERY SMALL WORLD

(feel free to skip this story...)I discovered Jack's post through a very pleasant coincidence. It really IS a small world. I met Jack Vinson at Matt Homann's and Dennis Kennedy's BlawgThink! just over a year ago. Always thought a lot of Jack's blog but admit I haven't been keeping up with it (or most of my RSS feeds lately).

What's really weird is that I just got back from a facilitation conference in Australia (one of only two Americans there). An Aussie from the conference, Andrew Rixon, requested participation in an on-line survey on some deep facilitation stuff. On clicking "done" I was forwarded to a blog called Anecdotes. (This is totally weird because I hadn't met any facilitators through IAF--Int'l Assoc of Facilitators--yet who blogged or knew much about blogs!)

The very first post I see, Stop Trying to Solve the Problem, references Jack and Bruce, two names I know well from the legal blog side and would never in a million years expect to come across in my facilitation circles--a very separate world for me from my legal and accounting side. Isn't this huge world small indeed?

Well, just goes to show, brilliant thinking is appreciated and it gets around! Good to bump into you again, Jack. What an unexpected way to do it.

"The most comprehensive guide that I have seen so far."―Joe Bailey, CPA

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